Dish Network is asking a federal judge in Orange County to grant it summary judgment against a Little Saigon man who allegedly operated a satellite piracy website and order him to pay $6,376,600 in damages.
Tan Nguyen, a single father of two young boys in Westminster, told the Weekly that he was not aware of any satellite codes posted at his Ftaforall site and shouldn't be held responsible, especially because he claims he did not profit from distribution of the information.
But lawyers for Dish say they have uncovered proof that Nguyen's Ftaforall posted at least 36 software files that were downloaded 31,883 times by individuals seeking to circumvent the network's security system and decrypt commercial programming codes.
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The company's lawyers–Chad M. Hagan, Stephen M. Ferguson of Houston and David A. Van Riper of Tustin–are demanding that Nguyen be permanently enjoined from committing future software piracy and engaging in all activities designed to intercept Dish Network's signal.
A hearing is scheduled in U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna's courtroom inside Santa Ana's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse on Feb. 11.
Selna has previously ordered the parties to participate in settlement negotiations.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
